Any sane person would feel thrilled with October 5th’s Department of Labor report, which states that 114,000 private sector jobs were created in September, and the unemployment rate has decreased to 7.8%. Unfortunately — as progressives have learned the hard way — much of the opposition is bat-sh*t crazy.

In the latest example of conservative craziness, lead ‘Job Truther’ Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, tweeted, “Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can’t debate so change numbers.” Some of his followers disagreed, including @kensweet who sharply replied “@jack_welch you’re a smart guy Jack. I hope you really don’t believe conspiracy theories like that.” Unfortunately, many folks in high places are backing up Welch’s claims, including Representative Allen West (R-FL) tweeted,“I agree with former GE CEO Jack Welch, Chicago style politics is at work here.” and Stuart Varney, host of Fox Business News’ Varney & Co. who claims, “there is widespread mistrust of this report and these numbers.” (or there is now, thanks to the viewers who were watching).

You can see the Fox News footage with Stuart Varney in the video below (courtesy of Fox News and Talking Points Memo):

Of course, it is highly unlikely that the Labor Department would cook the books. the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the group that compiles the Labor Department’s monthly job reports — is notoriously exacting in its gathering and presentation of data. According to Betsey Stevenson, who once served as the Labor Department’s chief economist, “Anyone who thinks that political folks can manipulate the unemployment data are completely ignorant of how BLS works and how data are compiled.” In addition, BLS Deputy Commissioner Jack Galvin has worked for the BLS through both Democratic and Republican administrations since 1979.

Later that day, during an interview on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, Welch admitted that he had no evidence, but still refused to withdraw his accusations:

Matthews: “What evidence do you have that ‘the Chicago guys’ got to the BOS [Bureau of Statistics] … and Jimmied those numbers by .3 percent, as you put it?”Welch: “I have no evidence, I just raised the question.”Matthews: “But no, you didn’t ‘raise the question,’ you said, ‘these Chicago guys will do anything..can’t debate so change numbers.’ You were asserting here, in your tweet, that you put out at 8:35 this morning, five minutes after the report came out … did you talk to any economists or any people in the national income accounting world that understood how these numbers were put together before you accused ‘these Chicago guys’ of changing the numbers?”Welch: Chris, I know that these numbers, gathered by a series of wild assumptions, maybe they weren’t right at 8.5 [%], maybe they weren’t right at 8.4, but it seems coincidental that — one month before the election — they would end up at 7.8. The president today is on the stump, the president, all he’s talked about is 7.8. He didn’t mention mention 600,000 jobs added in the government sector.Matthews: But let’s get back to you. It’s not your attitude about Obama people care about, it’s your analysis. And you came out this morning and asserted — not a question mark or concerned about a coincidence — you said ‘these Chicago guys’ would do anything so they ‘changed the numbers.’ Do you want to take that back?Welch: No, I don’t want to take anything back.